Travel Tidbits

A few facts about the snowfall in Atlanta on our scheduled travel day: On Friday, Jan. 10, it snowed in Atlanta for the first time in 4 years, and it was the most snowfall Atlanta received in 7 years. Yet the snowfall amount for the Atlanta area was only about 2.5 inches. Yeah, they don't get much snow in Atlanta. The biggest problem, though, wasn't the 2.5 inches of snow, but the quarter inch of ice. Even in snowy climes, the slightest amount of ice can cause major problems. Hence, the shutdown of the airport and the cancellation of all flights on Friday. The locals here in Atlanta seemed to enjoy the snow. They were out playing in it, and were really excited to see the snow. (You people in South Louisiana know what I'm talking about!)

We woke up Saturday morning to the news that there were more flight cancellations at the Atlanta airport. Since our flight wasn't until later in the day (5:00 p.m.), we were hoping that things would settle down throughout the day and our flight wouldn't be cancelled again. And that turned out to be the case.

One thing you never want to do is to fly out of Atlanta International Airport the day after all flights were cancelled. The airport was an absolute zoo! The security lines were so long. It took Ricky 1 hour and 45 minutes to get through security. Joe and I had TSA Precheck, and it still took us 40 minutes to get through. Fortunately we had seen on the news that the lines were very long, and we got to the airport early to allow ourselves plenty of time.

Airport security lines

Our flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles was great. We had about 4 hours in the LAX airport as our flight from LAX to Sydney was delayed by 2 hours. Once we boarded the plane, it was 11:20 p.m. Pacific time (2:20 a.m. Eastern time). The flight was a little over 14 hours, and for about 12 hours, the plane was darkened and most people slept, including us. It was a very smooth and comfortable flight. We were occasionally awakened by the Qantas people who came around every so often handing out food. Qantas Airlines is great and very generous with food. We re-discovered one of our favorite Australian snacks: Tim Tam cookies. It is like two chocolate wafers with chocolate cream in between, and then the whole thing covered in chocolate. They are absolutely delicious. I wonder if I could hoard a few boxes and bring some back home with me!

Because the flight was 2 hours late taking off in LAX, we only had 1 1/2 hours from the time we touched down in Sydney to the time our flight from Sydney to Melbourne was scheduled to take off. When we got off the plane in Sydney, we had to walk down long concourses, stand in long lines, grab our luggage, go through customs, re-check our luggage, go through security, take a shuttle to the domestic part of the airport, and board our plane. Could we do all that in 1 1/2 hours? Well, here's what happened on our way to our gate for the flight to Melbourne. We waited 45 minutes for our luggage. After collecting our bags, we headed to customs. Since we had nothing to declare, we got in the "short" customs line. However, when we got to the front of the line, Joe and I were waived through quickly, but Ricky was "chosen" for a random search. That meant Ricky was heading to the long customs line (that we thought we had avoided) and more waiting. That delayed us another 20 or 30 minutes while waiting for the dogs to sniff his luggage. Really, that's all they did.

When we finally cleared customs, we walked down more long concourses to the Qantas counter, where we knew by now that we would not make our flight. We arrived at the counter at 10:25 and the flight was scheduled for 10:30. They rebooked us on a 2:30 flight. We checked our bags, went through security, and caught the shuttle to the domestic terminal of the airport, where we waited a few hours for the flight to Melbourne. We'd spent so much time in airports by now that the airport was beginning to feel like home - not a good thing. Our flight to Melbourne was quick. We grabbed our luggage and caught an Uber to the hotel. 

We had left Ricky's around 10:30 Saturday morning, and walked into our hotel room at 5:30 Monday evening. Accounting for the time change, our total travel time was 39 hours. 

Fortunately we were able to get tickets for the Australian Open Tennis Tournament for Tuesday. After getting refreshed and sleeping for about 11 hours on Monday evening, we're ready to head out to start our Australian adventure!